Build Me A Coffin
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: Abby has one request for Gibbs. For a coffin. Why does she need another one? *First NCIS fic!


**A/N: my first NCIS fic!!!! It's so weird… I'm totally outside my comfort zone so no flames or I shall have my friend eat them!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS!!! Although I really, really wish I did!!!**

McGee watched the elevator slide open to allow him out of it. He could feel that something was wrong. Suddenly, he detected that there was no music blaring out of her surround sound stereo system. It was silent. Not perfectly silent, but more silent than he'd ever heard it. That lab was almost always spilling out some shrieking singer's music and vocals.

He stepped in the door to see the gothic girl standing there, black veil covering her face. Black wasn't unusual for Abby, but a veil wasn't considered normal. Then again, the girl wasn't even considered normal. "Abbs?" he asked softly. "Are you okay?"

"I have a question for Gibbs." She didn't turn around, but McGee could've sworn he heard her voice shaking.

"Abbs?" he started again.

"Timmy, can you go get Gibbs?" She had clearly cracked at that last part. She was breaking down on the inside and now the outside was portraying it as well.

Not wanting to argue with Abby (he always found that it ended badly for the person who was fighting against her, hence the Ziva and Abby slap-fight), McGee just placed the blood sample he'd brought down on the rack beside the others and retreated back to the elevator. He wondered why he listened to her some days…

The gothic girl turned to grab the vial and punched the serial number of the container into her brand new computer.

**~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~**

Gibbs was down in the elevator and walked into the lab in his calm and collected way, coffee in hand. The steam still billowed out of the small rectangular hole cut in the top. "What's wrong, Abby?"

"I need you to build me a coffin."

So that was why he was needed for a dire emergency in the lab? To build a coffin? Gibbs stared at the young woman for a second before asking, "What?" He wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly.

"Build me a coffin." The goth's voice was shaking and he could feel pain coming off of her in waves and pulses, flooding the room like a tsunami. It was very un-Abby. He considered that to be a word. "I need a coffin."

He wasn't about to argue. She seemed very shaken and it was only in his nature to comfort those of his close companions who were hurting. "How big?" was his only response.

She shivered and turned to hug him, needing consolation. "A small one. Child-size." Abby was too depressed to come up with a solid idea of normal dimensions. Her mascara ran down her face with muddied black tears and staining make-up on her cheeks.

Only wrapping his arms around her, Gibbs knew it was all she really needed. As soon as she stopped shaking, Abby pulled away from him and buried herself in her work, fingers flying over that shining new keyboard as if there was nothing stopping her from working on this case.

Gibbs kissed her forehead one last time, treating the girl as if she were the reincarnation of his dead daughter as he always did before leaving the room in his silent way.

Abby sighed one last time and her gaze crossed the room to the corner. Yet one more tear seemed to fill her drained eyes and it fell across her pallid skin. She uploaded the last of the information before heading into her office to clean up her face a bit. She was a wreck over this.

**~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~**

In the interrogation room, Gibbs would ask questions as he would shoot a machine gun, firing them off perfectly and as fast as lightning. But when it came to Abby, he didn't press, didn't go too far, didn't argue. That was one thing some people respected him for.

He stepped down into that lab again. She seemed much better, music pounding loud and hard. The silence that lingered earlier was strange for anyone. "You look better," he noted.

"Well, I had to fix most of my make-up and put so much more on that my pores can't breathe and I had to redo my pigtails so that they weren't so frizzy and messy and all that and then I needed a Caf-Pow because you forgot one earlier and that's obviously not the reason you're down here, is it?" Abby caught on to his stare, whether it was questioning or just a 'get to the point, Abbs' stare, she couldn't tell. But she knew she wasn't about to disappoint him with nothing. "Okay, so I found the blood of our Petty Officer Chaistine and there was a high alcohol level and he was obviously intoxicated when the PCP was slipped into him. And booze and drugs don't exactly mix." She gestured by interlocking her fingers and then making an explosion motion. "So he's going all Superman with his emotions. Either Superman or The Incredible Hulk. I personally prefer Batman, but-"

"Abby," Gibbs reminded, keeping her on track.

"Right," she breathed, a little peeved that he wouldn't let her keep talking sometimes. "So Chaistine goes all 'Roar, I'm Superman and I can beat anyone.' I'm guessing that Petty Officer Renaldo challenged him thinking it was some kind of joke and with the abilities that the angel dust gave Chaistine…" Abby gave a shrug. "I'm thinking Renaldo went down like a rock." The goth spun around, black pigtails hitting her face, to find Gibbs already gone and a fresh Caf-Pow on her desk. She eagerly scooped it up and sipped away.

**~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~NCIS~**

Two weeks later, Gibbs managed to get it into the elevator without getting too many strange looks. There were a few from other people who didn't quite understand Abby or didn't know her (it was hard not to know her). He didn't mind.

The elevator dropped itself down into the lowest levels of the NCIS building. The lab scents flowed into the enclosed metal space as Gibbs shuffled his way out, the coffin under one arm. It was child-sized, definitely. He'd gotten dark mahogany wood for it so the dark color would be perfect for Abby. The music was blaring per usual. He was glad she was back up and being Abby-ish again.

"Gibbs!" she said, spinning, for once being able to hear him instead of having her boss walk in and her be standing there, oblivious, for countless minutes. She caught sight of the coffin under his arm. Abby's expression became grateful. "Thank you, thank you, thank you so very much, Jethro!" She darted over, her massive black boots loud on the cold floor beneath her. "I totally owe you one."

He put one arm around her in a half embrace, the other still holding the large pieces of wood. "Where do you want me to put this?" he asked.

"I'm going to bury it outside in about a minute, so you could help me put the body inside first." She started over to one corner of the office.

The gray haired man was taken aback. What? She'd kept a body? In her lab? How had he missed this?

The goth girl came back with much wiring and the mouse and the keyboard of a computer in her hands. "Just put it down right there, Gibbs. That'll be fine." He did so and she dropped the pieces of technology into the coffin, carefully and gently organizing it. "I'll put it in if you don't want to," she offered. Another tear was brought to her eye. "It was such a great computer…" Her voice caught in her throat.

This was what he made a coffin for? A piece of machinery? Instead of sighing or complaining, he put his arm around her and wiped away that tear. "Come on. Let's get to burying this thing."

They spent the next hour packing the old computer system into the coffin, before taking it out to the grassy area in front of the building with a shovel and burying it.

**A/N: R&R! still my first fic. Please don't flame…**

**~Sky**


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